


in my head, i do everything right

by placentalmammal



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:51:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11381520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: Alyosha asked Arrell to marry him five times. Arrell asked only once.Spoilers through WiH 29.





	in my head, i do everything right

**Author's Note:**

> Daydrinking, Lorde, and [melancholy Twitter threads](https://twitter.com/luckydicekirby/status/881367165085134848) are a dangerous combination. Not proofread, feel free to point out my typos.

Arrell is thirty-one and Alyosha is twenty-two, newly an adult in the eyes of his Church. He has just concluded his studies at the University. He has a writ from the prelate in Velas: he is to set out south and bring Samothes’ word to the godless folk living there. It’s a good posting, an _honorable_ posting, and Arrell cannot name the emotion that rises in his chest at the prospect of Alyosha’s departure.

“I don’t have to go,” he says, over dinner. “The prelates are not unreasonable nor heartless.” He swallows, and Arrell watches the movement of his throat. “They have been known to grant special dispensation.”

Arrell says nothing. He picks up his fork and sets it down again, his appetite gone.

The younger man reaches across the table and takes his hand. “Marry me,” he says, eyes shining with earnestness.

Throat closing, Arrell removes his hand from Alyosha’s. “No.”

Alyosha deflates. “Why not?” he says, pouting in a way that makes Arrell want to kiss him, just to chase the frown from his lips. “I could stay here with you and become a chaplain for the students—”

“No,” says Arrell again, thinking of the Dark Son, the attempts made on his life. “Each of us has greater ambitions than one another.” His voice is sandstone, gravel, and his words have a harshness that he did not intend.

Alyosha sits back in his seat, expression unreadable. “If you insist,” he says, without inflection, and he returns his attention to his meal. He pushes his dinner around on his plate without eating it, and Arrell studies his hands, memorizing the elegant lines of his soft, pale fingers.

 _I didn’t mean it like that_ , he thinks but does not say. _I have enemies you haven’t dreamed of. I cannot afford to mark you out as a target by naming you ‘husband.’ I could not forgive myself if harm came to you because of my meddling. I am not strong enough to lose you to them—_

Arrell refills Alyosha’s water glass, avoiding his eyes. His heart is in his throat; he cannot breathe.

\--

The walls of the rented room press close around them, and they are the only living things in the universe. A candle burns low on the desk, casting soft light over the unmade bed. The air is warm and close, thick with the scent of their lovemaking. Arrell dresses hastily and tries not to look at Alyosha. Hair slips from his braid and his face and neck shine with sweat. He glows in the dim room, casting a faint light all his own.

“It’s so good to see you,” he says, propping himself up on his forearms. “I’ve missed you, Tutor.”

“You have not seen fit to answer my letters.” Arrell picks at a knot in his shoestrings, using the movement to disguise the trembling of his hands.

Alyosha frowns. “I haven’t received any letters,” he says. “Where have you been sending them?”

Arrell cannot help the way his heart flips in his chest. “I’ve addressed them to the prelate, with instructions to forward them to you,” he says. “You did not tell me _where_ you were bound—”

Rising, Alyosha captures him in a kiss, pressing their mouths together without finesse. They have kissed often but seldom like this, and Arrell responds in kind, leaning heavily on the other man for support. He cannot say no, even when he ought to, for both their sake.

“I hadn’t realized,” says Alyosha, babbling. “Weeks passed without word from you, and I assumed—” Overcome, he shakes his head, and there are tears on his cheek.

“I don’t understand,” says Arrell softly. “If you care for me, then why have I heard _nothing_ from you?”

“They’ve kept my letters from me,” Alyosha says softly. He shakes his head, and a lock of yellow hair falls forward into his dark eyes. “They’re meant to forward our letters,” he says thickly. “They’re meant to carry our correspondence while we’re on assignment.”

“Forget them,” says Arrell, and he kisses him again. “We are together now.”

Alyosha pulls back, shaking with rage. “They haven’t got the authority,” he says, and he is alive with fury, drawn taut as a bowstring in Arrell’s arms. “If we’re wed, they can’t keep us apart, Tutor.”

Arrell drops his gaze, swallowing. “You ask too much of me,” he says. “I cannot abandon my work to go traipsing after you, Alyosha.”

“I’m not asking you to,” says Alyosha. He turns his anger on Arrell, drawing the bedding up to cover his nakedness. He is inarticulate with rage, hands clenched into fists in the blankets. “You could remain in your study, I in the field, and we could exchange letters.”

Arrell looks intently at his feet, and not at the young man sharing his rented bed. He feels old, suddenly, older than his years. His guard slips and Fantasmo rushes in through the chinks in his mind. His puppet remains at the university, teaching his classes in his stead. He is giving a lecture on rudimentary semiotics, Arrell’s own distaste for pattern magic bleeding over into his presentation.

The sights and sounds of the lecture hall mingle the sensations of the room around him. The torrent of information overwhelms him temporarily, and for a moment he is adrift between bodies, neither Arrell nor Fantasmo. When he comes to, he is alone, the room is dark, and the candle has extinguished itself in a pool of wax.

\--

The note says nothing and everything, a few lines of prose on a scrap of parchment enclosed in a forwarded missive from the Velasian prelate. Arrell reads the letter once, twice, and then folds it into a tiny bundle and conceals it at the bottom of his pack.

_The elders, in their wisdom have seen fit to allow me to advance in Our hierarchy. I have received a promotion and a salary commiserate with my new responsibilities as exarch. It is enough for two to live comfortably. Enough for two plus one, provided we were willing to forego certain luxuries. I know that I ask too much of you, Tutor, but you must forgive me my weakness. We are neither of us so young as we were, and I find myself missing you more and more…_

\--

They are together for a few days in Velas and they walk the narrow streets together, arguing in low voices. Arrell keeps losing track of his words, distracted by the sunlight reflecting off the other man’s hair. There are fine lines at the corners of his eyes and a few silver threads gleaming at his temples. The years have been kind to him.

Arrell feels like a crow beside him. His hair is still coal-black, although it has begun to recede in recent years, drawing backward like a dowager leaving a party before midnight. He has gained weight and lost muscle, become shapeless and soft.

( _I have always been soft_ , he thinks. _He does this to me, him and nobody else. _Arrell pushes the thought away and tries for once to live in the present.)__

____

____

When they kiss, Arrell feels the weight of their years around his throat. He takes Alyosha’s hand and does not let go, even when the other man draws back, laughing. “Jealousy doesn’t become you,” he says, laughing. “You were so much handsomer when you did not care whether I took other lovers.”

Arrell harrumphs. “You did not used to describe them in such rapturous detail.”

“That was before I realized the pleasures of younger men,” he says. “You’ve done it, now. You corrupted me, you turned me into you—” He is teasing, but Arrell is in no mood for jokes. He pulls the other man into a savage kiss, hands twisting in his overcoat.

“You mock me,” he says when they break apart. “You were my first, my only. You have always had a greater claim on me than I on you—”

The look Alyosha gives him is incomprehensible and Arrell tries to kiss him again rather than decipher its meaning. The other man holds him at arms’ length and speaks soft and gentle, like a farmer trying to soothe a wounded beast.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “Forgive me, Arrell. I thought I had made my feelings plain.” Arrell scoffs but does not resist when Arrell kisses him, soft and sighing. “There have been others, but there are parts of my heart set aside for you—”

“Do not speak of marriage,” says Arrell. “Please. I cannot bear to have this conversation again.”

Sighing, Alyosha pulls away. “It has always been about what _you_ could stand to bear,” he says, and Alyosha is surprised at the bitterness in his voice.

“If I have offended,” he begins, but the other man cuts him off with a gesture.

“We have so little time together,” he says, and he slips a pale hand inside Arrell’s robes. “I do not want to waste it on words.”

\--

_I find myself speaking of you often in my sermons. Your example offers innumerable lessons, some of them positive! I jest of course, I do not think that I could bring myself to speak poorly of you, no matter how shabbily you treat me. You loved me once, I think. Perhaps you still do, in your own way._

_It is difficult, when speaking of you, to know how to describe you. ‘Friend’ is insufficient, and ‘lover’ presumes a familiarity you have refused me. By the by, I call you ‘partner’ although the word seems so cold and impersonal. Even if you have chosen to forget, I remember the warmth with which you once spoke my name, Tutor. I dream of those days: the soft words we shared, the weight of your kiss, the texture of your voice when I used my mouth on you. I have seen you undone, Tutor. How many can claim that privilege?_

_It would be easier, I think, to name you ‘husband’ and be done with it, but you have not seen fit to grant me that honor._

_I reread this letter and I am shocked at my own bitterness. Forgive me, Tutor. I will never claim to wholly understand you, though I think I have begun to understand the distance you have kept between us. Prelate Lucius is dead, and it is very cold here. In a few short days, I depart with Brother Hadrian and the elf called Throndir. You spoke of them once, although you did not say how you happened to make their acquaintance._

_I hope it is warm where you are, Tutor._

\--

When they meet again, they have been apart for so long that Arrell has lost track of days. Alyosha is strange to him, his body cold and grey, flowers bursting in his blood. He does not turn his head at Arrell’s approach, does not cease his work at the cold, blooming forge.

“Alyosha,” he says, and the exarch’s name catches in his torn throat. “ _Alyosha._ ”

He is the architect of spring and he does not deign to look to Arrell.

Arrell crosses the room on unsteady feet, reaching out for the other man. “Alyosha,” he repeats. “My love—they’ve hurt you.” He puts his hand on Alyosha’s shoulder, and the other man waves him away as though shooing a fly.

“I’ve failed you,” says Arrell. “I only ever meant to protect you.”

Alyosha does not turn his head.

“We can start over,” he says, swallowing hard. “It’s not too late, Aly. We can make a home together. I can be what you asked of me, I can keep you safe—” It is a lie, and Arrell’s voice breaks in the telling. He goes to his knees in front of the other man, tears rolling down his cheeks. Before long, the only sound in the forge is Arrell’s weeping, counterpoint to the steady rhythm of metal against metal


End file.
